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PERSONAL DATA – The Wall Street Journal has published a survey of Google's partner companies whose employees are reading users' Gmail exchanges to improve the algorithms of their application. How does it work and who is concerned? Explanations
– Mathilde Roche
Does Gmail really allow developers outside Google to read your email exchanges? Yes, but with your consent, more or less enlightened. The Wall Street Journal on Monday published a survey of how some application development companies, Google's partners, have access to email exchanges from Gmail users. By asking them, of course, the authorization to access their account, through the acceptance of the terms and conditions of use (UGC), but without really explaining what this implies. In particular, without clearly announcing that their employees, engineers and developers will be able to read and dissect their emails in order to improve their own offer of services.
In the context of mistrust that Cambridge Analytica engendered – the scandal of Facebook user's personal data sharing – this new one creaks teeth first. But contrary to what is implied by the title of Wall Street Journal ("Tech's 'Dirty Secret': The App Developers Sifting Through Your Gmail", which can be translated as "Sale's little secret of Tech": application developers sift through your Gmail "), this practice is neither secret nor widespread.
These applications, often services related to your activities – such as price comparators, automatic sorts of emails and newsletters, professional calendars – must first be downloaded by you to access your content. We can mention Edison Mail, specializing in the management of emails, or Return Path, specialist in email marketing. Then, like most applications, they display a request notification of access to a particular feature and data on your phone. In this case, applications ask for permission to "read, send, write and manage your e-mails". You are free to accept or refuse. This is where it gets complicated, because most people do not realize the real consequences of these permissions. Notably the fact that their mails can then be read and badyzed by real people, and not only by the algorithm of the application.
To summarize, only some applications related to Gmail, having previously requested your permission, can access your account. So you can always check which applications have this access and revoke it in your settings.
As for Google, the company itself has never hidden scanner what is happening on its messaging platform, to connect to its various other services, such as Smart Reply or Google Calendar. Since June 2017, the firm has ensured that this automatic reading would no longer serve to offer targeted advertising.
Following the publication of this Wall Street Journal Google issued a press release claiming that Gmail was a secure platform and that the company was making every effort to be transparent about the use of data of each user. The release also states: "Before a non-Google app can access your Gmail messages, it goes through a multi-step review process, which includes automated and manual developer control, as well as an badessment of the page. and privacy policy of the application, to ensure that it is legitimate and that it works as it says. "
Remains to be seen if the increasing pressure on large tech companies, due to the lack of precautions taken to secure private data, will force Google to better control the access to emails of its users by third parties
Mathilde Roche
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